Vicky Pryce has been moved from the harsh regime of Holloway Prison in North London to an open jail in the Kent countryside.

Pryce and her ex-husband, disgraced former Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne, were both sentenced to eight months for perverting the course of justice after she ‘accepted’ his speeding points ten years ago.

Last night, the economist told a friend: ‘I’m fine.’ She added that she was ‘settling in’ at East Sutton Park open prison near Maidstone and insisted staff were treating her very well.

Jailed: Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of former energy secretary Chris Huhne, pictured inside the window of a prison van as she was taken to Holloway Prison where she was moved after only four days

On Monday, Pryce, 60, who was convicted after a retrial at Southwark Crown Court, spent her first night behind bars at Holloway, Europe’s largest women’s jail, which has a reputation as a daunting institution for first-time prisoners.

But just four days later, after a risk assessment by Holloway staff, she was driven 30 miles in a prison bus to the more relaxed regime of East Sutton Park.

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Share

The Ministry of Justice describes the Grade II-listed 15th Century building as a ‘pleasant mansion house overlooking the Weald of Kent’ while prison inspectors say it produces ‘unusually good outcomes’ for the 100 women it holds.

During her time there, Pryce will work on the prison farm, where she will be expected to dig and weed alongside fellow prisoners – or ‘residents’.

Guilty: Pryce and former Cabinet minister Huhne were both sentenced to eight months for perverting the course of justice after she ‘accepted’ his speeding points ten years ago

They include April Casburn, the disgraced former Detective Chief Inspector convicted in January of corruption after attempting to sell information about the phone-hacking investigation.

Casburn, 53, contacted the News of the World to discuss Scotland Yard’s decision to launch a new investigation into hacking.

She claimed she made the call because the public should know that counter-terrorism officers were being used to investigate hacking instead of ‘saving lives’.

Another well-known East Sutton Park inmate was Jane Andrews, the Duchess of York’s former dresser who is serving life for stabbing to death her former lover Tom Cressman in 2000.

Andrews went on the run from East Sutton in 2009 and has now been sent to a closed prison.

Pryce – one of Britain’s leading economists – was jailed with her former husband after jurors rejected her claim that Huhne bullied her into accepting his penalty points in 2003 so he would not lose his driving licence.

Settling: Pryce was moved to East Sutton Park open prison near Maidstone, described as a 'pleasant mansion house', where a friend said she was 'settling in'

Although it is an open prison, East Sutton Park’s dormitories and lack of privacy will still be a far cry from the £2 million South London home she once shared with her former husband.

Last week her family raised concerns about her physical and mental state.

Her brother George Courmouzis said he was ‘worried’. ‘Our family has no experience of going to prison,’ he told BBC Radio. ‘Physically, Vicky is very frail.’

Meanwhile, Huhne remains within the bleak Victorian walls of Category B Wandsworth Prison in South London, which is home to 1,600 hardened convicts.

The former Energy Secretary’s spirits are said to be undimmed by his first experience of imprisonment. His girlfriend Carina Trimingham said: ‘He is getting on well both with inmates and officers.’

Huhne is also expected shortly to be moved to an open prison.

Provided that both he and Pryce keep out of trouble they can be expected to be released within two months, having served just a quarter of their sentences.

... but former inmate warns: It's so sinister she'll soon long to be back in her old cell

My impressions of East Sutton Park were initially promising: a female open prison in a red-brick Elizabethan manor deep in the Kent countryside with gardens designed by Capability Brown.

It was certainly a world apart from Holloway, the daunting jail for 500 offenders where I spent two years of a five-year sentence for fraud, and which is now home to Vicky Pryce, economist ex-wife of disgraced Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne.

Pryce has been given an eight-month sentence for perverting the course of justice after ‘accepting’ Huhne’s driving points.

New home: East Sutton Park open prison near Maidstone in Kent, an an 15th century Elizabethan manor

But as a low-risk, white-collar offender she will be moved to East Sutton Park within the next two weeks. Contrary to expectations, this is not a cushy number.

While Holloway, where you are locked up for 18 hours a day, has its own challenges, for an educated middle-class woman such as Pryce, the regime at an open prison – where the walls are psychological, the competitive atmosphere suffocating and the rules petty and patronising – may prove unbearable.

Granted, when I arrived at East Sutton, I was astounded to be offered coffee – a luxury at Holloway – and tobacco. I was no longer a prisoner, but a ‘resident’, and staff called me ‘Kate’ rather than ‘Miss Johns’.

I could use nail varnish, had more than two pairs of shoes and glass perfume bottles – previously confiscated because they could be used as weapons.

I could walk in the grounds until 11pm and use the telephone without asking permission.

Unbearable: The former inmate warned that a 'middle-class woman' like Pryce may find her new surroundings 'unbearable'

I was served Sunday roast with rice and had plastic cutlery.

Now my ‘bedroom’ was carpeted and oak-panelled, with an original fireplace. We had fresh vegetables, meat and a salad bar and were allowed to eat with metal knives and forks off china plates – a luxury.

But before long I saw the formidable downside of East Sutton Park.

As a working prison, ‘residents’ were required to graft on the farm, and in the gardens and kitchens, putting in eight hours a day for an average salary of £14 a week.

It was often back-breaking, especially if, like Pryce, you are used to sitting in an office, firing off emails. I regularly mucked out dozens of pigs.

Not easy: Former city lawyer and ex-inmate of East Sutton Park Kate Johns said the prison stay was 'humiliating'

More humiliating were the menial roles such as cleaning toilets and taking rubbish out, for which we were paid two pence. We also shared rooms: I lived with a senior police officer convicted of theft, and a septuagenarian murderess approaching parole after a life sentence.

She was said to be so determined for release that she informed on other inmates for cash.

While ‘grassing up’ a fellow inmate may be considered unacceptable in television dramas, it was a culture that was almost encouraged at East Sutton Park.

The governors were reliant on informants and seemed overtly affected by the ‘celebrity’ of some residents.

Your ‘press file’ (newspaper cuttings) was used for risk assessment and to identify those with ‘assertive tendencies’.

Staffing, which had been limited at Holloway, was excessive at the open prison and for the first time in my sentence I became conscious of being scrutinised, to an extent that felt obsessively intrusive.

Staff listened to my telephone calls and discipline was dished out for the pettiest reasons.

Those who were allowed out on day release had to write down everything in their handbag, even including their brand of eyeliner.

Strip searches were the norm. Thankfully, I never experienced one, but some women came back tearful and traumatised.

We were also regularly subjected to room ‘spins’, where dormitories were turned upside down by staff on the merest inkling we had contraband.

Punishments varied from loss of day release to the nuclear option: ‘closed conditions’. Staff used them both, punishing residents randomly and threatening to restrict access to families, friends and children.

Holloway has an established reputation for violence, but I discovered a certain camaraderie between the inmates.

That did not exist at East Sutton Park, where residents appeared to be in competition.

We also faced threats of violence. One Sunday I was typing up a witness statement – we had access to computers but not the internet – when two women serving life complained that I was typing ‘too loudly’ (they could only type with one hand and had probably never heard anyone touch-typing).

They suggested I should leave the room or get ‘hurt’. I promptly left.

In the past I have said that prison saved my life. It certainly gave me a reality check after years spent in an ivory tower in the City.

Perhaps it will do the same for Pryce. But if her experience in open prison resembles mine, she may yet find she longs for the monotony of Hotel Holloway.